Acts 27:27 - Exposition

To and fro for up and down, A.V. ; the sea of Adria for Adria, A.V.; sailors for shipmen, A.V.; surmised for deemed, A.V. ; were drawing for drew, A.V. The fourteenth night , reckoned from their leaving Fair Havens (so Acts 27:18 , Acts 27:19 ). Driven to and fro ( διαφερομένων ); it is rather carried across, or along, from one end to the other. Sea of Adria . Adria, as in the A.V. , is scarcely correct, as a translation of the Greek (though the Latins did call it Adria ) , because the nominative case in Greek is ὁ ἀδρίας , sc. κόλπος , Adrias, the Adriatic Gulf. ἀδρία is the name of the town near the mouth of the Po, which gave its name to the Adriatic. As regards the use of term ὁ ἀδρίας , the Adriatic, it is used in two ways: sometimes strictly of the Gulf of Venice, the Adriatic; sometimes, chiefly in latter writers, in a much wider sense, of the whole sea between Greece and Italy, including Sicily. This last is its use here. So, too, Josephus says that he was wrecked κατὰ μέσον τὸν ἀδρίαν , in the midst of the Adriatic, on his voyage from Caesarea to Puteoli, and was picked up by a ship from Cyrene. This implies that he used the word " Adria " in the same sense as St. Luke does. Surmised that they were drawing near . Probably from hearing the waves breaking upon the Point of Koura, east of St. Paul's Bay. υπονορω is only found in the Acts ( Acts 13:25 ; Acts 25:18 ; and here); but it is used three or four times in the LXX . (Daniel, Job, Judith, Sirach), and is common in classical Greek in the sense of to "suspect, conjecture," "guess at" anything ( see ὑπονοία , 1 Timothy 6:4 ). Were drawing near, etc.; literally, that some country (or, land ) was drawing near to them. In like manner, the land is said ἀναχωρεῖν , to recede, as the vessel gets out to sea.